Work in this laboratory has focused on a family of zinc finger transcriptional regulatory factors and their role in initiating or maintaining the malignant phenotype. These zinc finger genes, designated 225 (EGR-1), 592 (EGR-2), EGR-3, and 133 (EGR-4), are early response genes whose expression is activated in cells stimulated by a variety of proliferative and differentiative stimuli. Presumably, the dysregulation of these regulatory factors which appear to be critical for cellular proliferation as well as differentiation of certain cell lineages may lead to unbridled proliferation or altered differentiation. Consequences of the dysregulation of these transcription factors would reasonably be expected to be characterized by alterations in the pattern or extent of transcription and/or expression of target genes regulated by these zinc finger genes.